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Shuttle-Mir Stories - Foale on Benefit of Phase 1

In his Oral History, U.S. Mir astronaut Michael Foale discusses
the value of Shuttle-Mir: Phase 1 of the International Space Station program.

Foale says, "Shuttle-Mir has its greatest benefit in that it drew
the space professionals in both Russia and America together so they know each
other and understand each other, and, therefore, can complete the International
Space Station Program. That's the true value of the Phase 1 Program. The rest
of it is all microscopic . . .

"We have learned a few technical things . . . [for example,] in
terms of how to control [a space station's] attitude in the event of power loss
[and] what to do in certain cases if we have too much water condensation. But
this is small stuff compared to the overall big win, which is we understand
each other to the extent that we trust each other to do the International Space
Station together.

"Without Phase 1, we couldn't do it. . . . We'd have ended up doing
Phase 1-type flights on the space station in a very haphazard way . . . Frank
Culbertson said it a few times, that without Phase 1 you couldn't do the space
station. It's because of the way it's allowed managers, astronauts, engineers,
all to know each other."